


Let's Let Things Come Out of the Woodwork

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: lovers from the moon [3]
Category: Mystery Science Theater 3000
Genre: (just a little), Couch Cuddles, Drinking & Talking, Jonah hates lying to the bots, Kinga just loves lying but she doesn't lie much here, Love Confessions, Max hates lying to Kinga, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Relationship Negotiation, Secret Desires, Tragic backstory reveal, Tumblr used as a plot device, some of the events from Even the Mistakes only 20 years later through their eyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12011637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Jonah has questions. Kinga is unusually inclined to answer them... as long as she can have a few drinks while she does it. Max is always eager to answer questions. Jonah asks them the same questions, and the different answers are enlightening. Of course, he has to answer some too.





	Let's Let Things Come Out of the Woodwork

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by [some back-and-forth between the character tumblrs](https://squishysecondbanana.tumblr.com/post/164234355479/thirdgenerationsupervillain).
> 
> I didn't expect this to be so long (mistake one) or to end the way it did (mistake two) but I ended it there to prevent it from taking another two weeks to finish. Hopefully no one's too disappointed.

Jonah considered himself a pretty good secret keeper. Lots of people had entrusted him with their secrets and the only ones he hadn't kept were the ones that would lead to someone being injured. He was a good secret keeper... but not a very good liar. His first visit to Moon 13 had been a secret, but now the bots knew something was up, and lying to them was harder than simply keeping the secret.

" _Again_?" Tom asked, appalled. "What did you _do_?"

"Didn't you just save her life like last month? Why is she personally torturing you now?" Crow asked.

"I'm not losing my mind fast enough from the movies," Jonah said, looking down at his fingers tapping on the tabletop. "She wants me broken."

"This never happened to Joel or Mike," Crow said.

"Well, we weren't that connected with Deep 13 though... the Umbilicus just brought stuff, not people," Tom pointed out. Crow ceded the point with a click of his beak.

"This isn't right," Gypsum said. "She's a crappy scientist if she's willing to pollute her own data this badly." Jonah blinked a couple of times and leaned slightly away from Gypsum.

"Yeah, this is violating the whole spirit of the experiment," Tom said. "Isn't the point to find a movie that'll make everyone crack? She can't get a valid result from a broken test subject."

"Uh, guys, I'm not sure that--"

"We won't let her take you," Crow said, curving a claw around Jonah's shoulder. "For her own good."

" _Guys_. I think we need to uh, take a step back and see whose sake your intervention should be for..." He forced his hands still against the table but started tapping again a breath later. "Look, she's just going to be even more angry if we try to put her off. I can handle this, okay? I'm tougher than I look."

"I hope so, you look pretty fragile," Tom said.

" _Hey!_ "

"I mean, compared to a bot, of course."

"Not helpful." Jonah ran both hands through his hair and messed it up, sighing. "Look, just... don't worry about me, okay? I'll be fine."

"As if we would actually worry about you," Crow scoffed, and Jonah huffed a laugh.

"Right. Of course." The light started blinking, and Jonah hesitated for a second before hitting the button. From lying to acting, now.

Kinga's lip was curled when the screen flipped on. "Robots. Jonah," she said, and the sneer became a smirk. "I hope you're as unprepared for this as you look." Next to her, Max looked nervous.

"You wish," Jonah said. "You know, the bots made a good point... you're corrupting your data by doing this." Her eyes went wide and furious. "Torturing me might get you a false positive on an insanity-inducing movie." He had to bite his lip against his laugh when the fury in her eyes visibly flipped into amusement. Did she really think he was _that_ bad at keeping secrets?

"Your paltry appeal to the scientific method won't save you tonight," she declared. "The only thing you have coming is _deep hurting_." Tom and Crow shuddered sympathetically as the tube came down to snatch Jonah away. Max was standing in the open door of the Backjack when Jonah fell into the seat, and he smiled when Jonah met his eyes.

"The bots are berating her," he said. "Less about your welfare and more about the data."

"That's... unsurprising," Jonah said, cracking all of his knuckles and wiggling his fingers as he followed Max out. As soon as the bots realized it was a tell, he'd be in trouble, but for now the finger tapping was an unstoppable nervous reflex when lying. "So what are we actually doing tonight?"

"You said you wanted tragic backstory. And Kinga wants appletinis. Perfect timing," Max said.

"Wait, you're actually going to let me in on things?" Jonah hadn't realized when he added the two of them on Tumblr that they'd be using it to flirt so much, hijacking text posts and calling each other out via memes, but apparently this was the payoff from a text post about villains' backstories. Kinga had said there wasn't enough alcohol on the Moon to get her to spill, but Max seemed to relish the idea of talking about their shared history. "And she's not going to murder one or both of us?"

"She won't let me tell you a lot of things. More professional than personal, honestly."

"So if I stick to personal questions I'm more likely to get answers?"

"She's reserving the right to veto anything she wants, but if you're patient I bet she starts answering questions after appletini number three."

"Not enough booze on the Moon," Jonah said dryly, and Max laughed.

"Keeping her from getting maudlin will be harder than getting her to talk."

"Well, I, uh... brought something to help with the lack of booze on the Moon." Max arched a brow at him and Jonah patted his pocket. "Did you know there are hydroponics bays on the SOL?"

"I'd seen them on the schematics," Max said.

"There were lots of types of seeds stored there, so I started growing things when I found them... and there was a surprisingly sophisticated seed catalog for strains of cannabis."

"I _knew_ it," Max said. "I knew there was no way Joel was that laid back naturally. Wow, I wish I could hold Kinga to the bet our dads made about that." Jonah's brows shot up.

"How'd that go?"

"Dr. F. swore that was just how Joel was. My dad was pretty sure he was on something. They bet on..." Max paused mid-step with his mouth open, then shook his head sharply and put his foot down. "Something I didn't understand when I was sixteen," he said a little weakly. "Nevermind."

"Okay... anyways I've been growing it with excellent results."

"Funny, I didn't take you as a green thumb."

"Hydroponics is easier than dirt gardening," Jonah said. "And I'm from Hawaii. We were early adopters of medical marijuana. I might know something about good weed."

"Might," Max said with a snort.

"Where are we going?" Jonah asked, looking around. Max was leading him into a part of Moon 13 he'd never seen before.

"The living room," Max said, and Jonah tilted his head in question. "We sort of recreated my apartment's living room for... I don't know if it's nostalgia or laughs, honestly. All the furniture was in a storage room so we just rearranged it one day. It's nice having a comfortable place to go when we're stressed out. We figured we'd hang out in there tonight."

"Why'd you bring all your old furniture to the Moon? That sounds like a waste of rocket fuel."

"Sorry, that's _definitely_ a professional secret she'd kill me if I told you."

"Okay..." Max pushed open a door and waved Jonah in. Jonah looked around when he walked in. Aside from the lack of windows, it... looked like a normal living room. Comfy looking couch, big TV in front of it, bookshelves filled with various types of media, very old and dented up coffee table. The coffee table held varyingly full bottles of booze: a bottle of vodka, a bottle of apple schnapps, a bottle of Cointreau, a bottle of whiskey, a shaker, two gaudily painted souvenir wineglasses, and a slightly chipped glass tumbler. "Appletinis, huh?"

"You have no idea how many of them I've made," Max said. " _I_ have no idea how many of them I've made."

"Whatever the number is, you're going to add to it tonight," Kinga said, and both men startled at her silent entrance. She looked even shorter in sock feet, and she stared at them both with her chin lifted for a moment. "Don't make me regret agreeing to this."

"What's the worst that could happen?" Jonah asked, and she cut a pointed glance at Max, who shrugged.

"I don't care about my embarrassing history, but she cares very much about hers," he said. "Come on, Kinga, give me a little credit. I'm not going to share humiliating stories."

"We have different recollections of the same events," she said flatly, and brushed past them to sit on the couch, tucked into one corner, feet curled up underneath herself. "Drink, please."

"Of course, my love," Max said, and busied himself with making it. "Want one, Jonah?"

"Sure, why not?" Kinga's body language was the opposite of welcoming. Jonah settled on the other side of the couch, turned out the contents of his pocket onto the coffee table, and bit back a smile when she leaned over to see and her eyes went wide.

"Where did _that_ come from?"

"My dad was right," Max crowed. "Joel was a stoner. The hydroponics bay still had his seed catalog."

"And _this_ is what you elected to grow?"

"Well, I'm also growing vegetables and a few types of berries. But yes, this too."

" _I’ll_ corrupt the data my ass," Kinga said. "No wonder Joel never cracked. What's the device?"

"Miniature vaporizer," Jonah said. "Open flames in space, never a good idea."

"Good thinking," she said, and looked at Max with a smirk. "Hey Max, remember that time...?"

"You might as well tell him," Max sighed. "I think it more reflects your terrible judgment than what an idiot I am, anyways." Kinga waited until he handed her an appletini and rearranged herself in the corner of the couch, not quite so balled up and defensive.

"The first time we put Kingachrome to a full audio/visual screening we wanted to test it on something short and brightly colored," she said. "Max suggested Adventure Time. Which suited the criteria, but the show annoys the hell out of me."

"She likes to pretend she's outgrown cartoons," Max said.

"I've outgrown _children's_ cartoons," she shot back. "Anyways... I told him I'd let him pick the test video if he'd let me get him high."

"I thought she meant _after_ ," Max said. "Because testing complicated and potentially dangerous science while stoned is stupid."

"I might have been a little overly cocky that it would work as designed," Kinga admitted.

" _Might_ ," Max said, and handed Jonah a drink. "Might? It was a disaster."

"It wasn't a _disaster_ ," she said with a snort. "It didn't operate as planned, okay? The sound came through fine, it was the first thing we got working with the liquid media. But the visuals were a mess. It looked like a kaleidoscope. It was honestly pretty cool, even if it was botched." She waited for Max to sit down between them, then nudged him with her toes. "And Max was utterly useless. He was completely enthralled with the pretty colors. I was fumbling at the controls trying to shut it down and he was just staring at it."

"Rookie mistake," Jonah said, and she scowled at him.

"That was the year before I got expelled. I'd been at Gizmonics six years by then."

"You might not have been a rookie scientist, but definitely a rookie stoner," Jonah said. "Never go into the lab high, it's the worst idea. Is that how you blew up your lab?"

"That was _not_ my fault," Kinga snarled. "It wasn't Max's fault either. They wouldn't let me come in and do my own postmortem but I'm absolutely certain that it was not our error."

"What's your explanation for it, then?" Jonah asked, watching her look down into her glass. She scowled and downed the rest of her drink in two long swallows before setting the glass on the table and pinning him with a fierce look.

"Other labs in that wing had intermittent electrical failures in the days before the explosion," she said. "Kingachrome is highly volatile when it gets above sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. I think the power failure killed the cold storage where it was contained and no one reset the circuit breaker for my lab. We had an hour long TV episode converted, that's a lot of liquid. When it hit sixty-eight degrees..." She shrugged. "We'd been gone all weekend. Monday morning we came into the lab. I opened the fridge. The Kingachrome was boiling. I slammed the fridge shut and told Max to run. I probably shouldn't have slammed it. We barely made it out of the blast range before it went."

"You didn't," Max said. "I had to take you to the ER to get that shard of metal out of your leg."

"The building didn't come down on my head, I was out of the blast range," she said with a dismissive wave of one hand. "And it was only five stitches. I was fine."

"Really?" Jonah's eyes were wide.

"I'll show you the scar if you remind me the next time I take my pants off with you," she said. "Science doesn't count unless you bleed for it."

"I don't think that's legitimate," Jonah said. "I never bled for my percussion propulsion drive."

"You never _finished_ your percussion propulsion drive," she pointed out, and he frowned.

"I could if you'd let me," he said.

"You'd take off and we'd never see you again," she said, shaking her head. "No. I can't let you."

"I can finish working on it without being in space, you know."

"I said no." There was steel in her voice that time. Jonah shrugged and sipped his drink. "How did we even get onto this topic? I specifically didn't want to talk about professional shit."

"We can change the subject," Max said, looking from Jonah to Kinga and back again. "Ask a question."

"Okay..." Jonah studied the pair of them for a moment, then smiled. "What's your favorite memory of each other?" Max huffed a laugh and shook his head.

"That's like asking what my favorite song is. I need more defined criteria to know what sort of thing you want to hear."

"Favorite childhood memory, then."

"The afternoon we formalized our evil intentions with a pact over ice cream."

"Oh my god," Kinga said. "Really? That's your favorite memory?"

"It was the first time you said out loud that you wanted me to be your favorite person for the rest of our lives. Yeah, that stands out," Max said, curling a hand around hers.

"You fucking sap," she said, but she shifted around to lean against him. "That wasn't the day I learned how to cartwheel, was it?"

"I don't think so, it was around then though."

"You know how to cartwheel?" Jonah asked. Kinga smirked.

"Seven years of gymnastics lessons, I can do more than just cartwheel."

"Oh _really_ ," Jonah said, looking at her over the rims of his glasses. "Interesting. What's your favorite memory of Max?"

"The time he made me another appletini," she said, and Max rolled his eyes and put down his drink to make her another one. Jonah was still sipping his first one. "I don't-- it's not one memory? It's one thing that happened with some regularity." Jonah made a 'go on' motion and she looked at Max for a long moment, expression softening. "I used to have nightmares. My whole life, honestly, and they got a lot worse when I was at boarding school and he wasn't around. But when I was little and I had a nightmare he was the person I'd go to. Dad would get impatient with me sometimes, but Max never did. He never yelled at me for waking him up or made fun of my nightmares. He'd sit up with me and distract me until I forgot about the dream and then tuck me back into bed." She smiled slightly. "I faked it for the attention a couple of times."

"Did you really?" Max handed her the refilled glass. "You didn't have to trick me to get my attention, you know." She kissed his cheek and sat back.

"I still have nightmares as an adult... but I never had one when I spent the night at his place until I started sleeping there every night. And the first time it happened after we started sharing a bed, he didn't even wake up all the way, he just pulled me closer and murmured absolute nonsense into my hair, but it still calmed me down."

"When was that?" Max asked, puzzled. She leaned in and whispered something in his ear, and he went pink. "Oh."

"That's unexpectedly sweet, coming from you," Jonah said, and she rolled her eyes.

"I'm not a hopeless romantic but I still have feelings, you know."

"It's interesting to see you express feelings you aren't resentful about," Jonah said. Her lip curled and he laughed. "So what about this tragic backstory, then? Was growing up in Deep 13 traumatizing?"

"I don't think traumatizing is the right word for growing up there," Max said. "It was weird. We knew it wasn't normal in general. But it was normal to us. It was traumatizing when we had to leave."

"I didn't know it wasn't normal," Kinga said. "But I was raised to believe that normal is inferior anyways."

"Where were your moms?" Max looked at Kinga, who barely perceptibly shook her head.

"Not in the picture," Max said.

"So, what, your dads co-parented?"

"No," Kinga said quickly.

"Ehhh," Max said, wobbling one hand in the air. "I don't remember ever going to Dr. F. for reassurance. But I think he sort of used me like a trial kid so he'd be a better father to his own kid."

"Sounds like my dad," Kinga said. "I never thought of Frank as my parent. More like... I don't know, an unrelated uncle."

"That's pretty Hays Code queer," Jonah said. "Just saying."

"That's a disturbingly accurate take on their vibe," Max said. "Heavy on the innuendo, deranged personalities perpetrating villainy... yeah, accurate."

"Well, I didn't mean to be that specific, but if it works..." Jonah finished his drink and put it down, rearranging himself on the couch until his long legs were pressed against Max's. "So what was _your_ relationship like? Cousin-y?"

"Neither of us actually has a reference for what a real cousin relationship is like," Kinga pointed out. "But we'd tell people we were cousins if they asked if we were siblings. Max was responsible for me a lot and it was the easiest way to get people to stop asking questions."

“I don’t think there’s something simple we can say to describe what it was like,” Max said thoughtfully. “I was her second banana. My dad told me that the very first time I held her after she was born and that was just… that was it. That defined my life. I knew what I was supposed to be so I had an idea of what I needed to do to be good at it and I just… did my best for as long as I could. Until she got taken away.”

“Taken away by who?” Jonah asked, but it was clear that wasn’t the only question he wanted to ask. Max glanced at Kinga, and she looked at Jonah.

“You’re familiar with the original experiments, you said.” 

“Yeah.”

“Do you know what happened to our dads?” she asked.

“I mean, sort of? Where were you when that was all going on, anyways?”

“We were there,” Max said. “Once I was old enough to drive, they’d send us out to the movies while they were busy with the experiment, but before that… we were just somewhere else in Deep 13. They didn’t want us involved with their schemes until we were old enough to get it. Well, until Kinga was old enough to get it, honestly. If they’d survived until she reached high school, I think they would have started bringing her in on the mad science stuff. But they didn’t.”

“After Dad went starbaby, Grandma sent me to this little all-girls’ boarding school in New York,” Kinga said. “She wouldn’t tell Max where she sent me, and I didn’t know where he moved after we all had to leave Deep 13. So for six years we didn’t have any contact with each other.” She finished her second drink, put the glass down, and moved until her legs were stretched out over both men’s laps. “He promised me he’d stay near Gizmonics. I knew I’d come back on a legacy scholarship, so as soon as I got out of school I searched for him. It took me a couple weeks to find him.” Since her feet were already in his lap, Jonah started rubbing one of them, and she hummed happily.

“She broke into my apartment,” Max said dryly. “I came home and she was sitting on my couch.”

“I didn’t _break in_ ,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I figured out where you put your backup key. It wasn’t that hard. I know how you think.”

“So you were apart when you were a teenager,” Jonah said, and Kinga nodded.

“I found him a week and a half after my 18th birthday,” she said. “I didn’t even celebrate my birthday that year, really. All my school friends had scattered to the winds, I was alone and living in a motel because I couldn’t move into the Gizmonics undergrad dorms until the end of August… I think I bought myself a cupcake. That was it.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Max said, and Kinga shrugged. 

“It wasn’t important. Finding you was better than a birthday present.”

“That must have been really rough,” Jonah said. “Losing your closest friend for that long.”

“It fucked me up,” she said, reaching for Max’s hand and threading her fingers through his. “I was already a mess from losing Frank and then my dad in such a short amount of time. We were all pretty unstable around then. But when I got left at school… I hated how easily I started crying, I spent so much time crying. It wasn’t all terrible there. It would have been terrible if it had been a normal school, but this was an institution specifically for mad scientists’, villains’, generally morally sketchy people’s daughters. I did learn a lot there. And I made connections there that helped me a _lot_ afterwards. But my nightmares got worse. And most of the girls thought I was weird even by villain standards.”

“I didn’t have it as bad as she did, but I was already an adult by then,” Max said. “I knew she’d come back, I was absolutely sure she’d find me again. I just didn’t know when. So I kept myself busy. Took way too long to earn an associate’s degree, but I dragged it out longer than necessary so I could keep doing college radio.”

“You did college radio? What did you play?” Jonah asked.

“At what point? Every weeknight was a different format, I did everything except techno night, and I did a midnight-to-3am show on Friday and Saturday nights which was literally whatever I felt like playing. This was… 2000 to 2005? Believe it or not, I played a lot of early emo.”

“I believe it,” Kinga said. “But I can’t imagine you in Hot Topic couture.”

“That’s because I’m the exact incorrect body type for skinny jeans,” Max said dryly. “I said I played it, not that I embodied it. Although I kind of did that too. I was despondent without you for a while. I tried to keep myself out as much as possible. Anytime I was alone in my apartment, I just… missed your voice.” She pulled their clasped hands up and kissed the back of his, and he smiled at her.

“What was it like after you found each other again?” Jonah switched to rubbing Kinga’s other foot. Max chewed his lip thoughtfully for a second.

“It was a little weird,” he said. “It was great, I mean, I was so glad to have her back. But it took a lot of mental adjustment. The last time I saw her the only thing on my mind was keeping her safe. But she didn’t really need to be protected when she came back… well, except from herself.” Jonah gave Kinga a quizzical look and she made a face.

“I’m my own worst enemy,” she said. “Really. No one is harder on me than I am. And when I found him…” She shook her head. “I have… issues with being abandoned.”

“Completely reasonably,” Jonah said, and she looked surprised at the validation.

“I wanted to take up all his time. But I was really busy myself. We went from hanging out on the weekends while I was taking too many credits pretty much every undergrad semester to seeing each other all day every day when I got lab space and he became my assistant officially. I was… kind of awful to him for a while. Even though he was the only person who had my back unconditionally.”

“It wasn’t that bad all the time,” Max said. “It’s a Forrester thing. Your dad was like that too. If he didn’t have an external target for his natural loathing, he’d just take it out on himself. When he turned into a star baby… I think that was just the purity of his own self-hatred hitting him all at once.”

“God that’s depressing,” Kinga said. 

“Look on the bright side… it definitely won’t happen to you,” Max said. “Well, unless something happens to me first.”

“You are in a high-risk profession,” Jonah said. “But honestly, Kinga… you take pride in your weirdness and your evil intentions. What don’t you like about yourself?”

“I’m ending this conversation here,” Kinga said, removing her feet from Jonah’s grasp and curling herself back into the corner of the couch. “Change the topic.” She waved at the vaporizer and bag of weed Jonah had left on the table. “What about that? Let’s do that.”

“We can do that,” Jonah said easily, but he gave Max a curious look and waited for his nod before reaching for it. “I didn’t mean to agitate you.”

“You’re asking all the questions and not offering much information,” she said. “It’s unbalanced.”

“I’m not the one with the tragic backstory,” Jonah said, busying his hands with the weed. “If you want to know something, just ask me. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“How’d you end up at Gizmonics?” Max asked. 

“I grew up in Hawaii. I was always a huge nerd, I loved space, and when I was a kid they were part of a coalition that built a telescope on one of the islands… I worked the telescope into a science fair project in high school and someone from Gizmonics actually came to recruit me. They said I was promising.”

“You’re very promising,” Kinga said with a leer. Jonah smirked and handed her the vaporizer.

“Ladies first. Just hold that button and--” Kinga rolled her eyes and waved him off, insulted that he’d instruct her in something so simple, and he sat back and tried not to laugh. “Don’t inhale too hard,” he finished the thought as she coughed. “Like that, basically.” She flipped him off and he couldn’t hold back the laughter any more. She pressed the vaporizer into Max’s hands and turned to finish coughing, and Max looked down at it thoughtfully. “No pressure,” Jonah said, and Max arched a brow at him.

“I’m pretty sure this is the safest possible context to do this in,” he said. “Except for the usual amount of hazard that goes along with Kinga’s presence, but I’m used to that.” She punched his shoulder, and he tipped his head toward her. “Case in point.”

“It’s definitely not a lab,” Jonah said. “And I’m basically harmless.”

“Not the word I would have used, but true,” Max said. “You’re more actively good than harmless though.”

“ _Protagonist_ ,” Kinga said, rolling her eyes, and Max elbowed her. 

“Don’t say it like it’s a bad thing.”

“It’s an unorthodox relationship,” she said, and it was Max’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Please, like you’ve ever had a normal relationship with anyone.”

“I mean, on a gradient of normal…”

“Like you’ve ever wanted to do anything normal in your life?”

“When you put it like that, no,” she said.

“What’s the most normal thing you want for your life?” Jonah asked her, and she blinked twice and frowned down at her hands, thinking it over.

“That’s a very subjective question,” Max said. “Normal is so relative.”

“I guess… to get married?” Max made a weird half-choked sound and they both looked at him to find him wide-eyed.

“Since when?”

“I don’t know, it’s always sort of been an intention?”

“You’ve never said anything about it. You mocked it when I brought it up, actually.”

“That was years ago. I’ve grown up since then.” She shrugged. “I’d want you to take my name.”

“Yeah, obviously! Make me a Forrester, I think I deserve that after all this time.”

“Would you still be my second banana, or is spouse an overriding function?”

“Wouldn’t you be co-villains if you were married?” They both looked at Jonah, who had a wide grin on his face. “I mean, not that I know how supervillains do things.”

“We do things however we want to,” Kinga said. “I make the rules here. The Moon is mine.” She stared at him intently for a second and then grinned back at him. “Ever considered antagonism as a career?”

“You’re literally trying to seduce me to the dark side,” Jonah said dryly. “You are the least subtle…”

“I have never claimed to be subtle,” she said. “But I am good at getting what I want.”

“Even if you don’t bother actually telling people what it is that you want,” Max said. 

“I just want to have it all… global dominion and a family of my own,” Kinga said. “But in that order. I don’t want to be distracted by a family when I’m working on amassing power to myself.”

“Well, you know where to find me when you’re ready,” Max said with a snort, and she leaned against him and put her head on his shoulder.

“Same place you always are, right at my side.”

“You two are ridiculous,” Jonah said fondly. Kinga made an offended sound and he put an arm around both of them, squeezing her shoulder gently. “You’re really cute, that’s all. You suit each other. Just make an honest man of him before you take over the world, yeah?”

“Don’t rush me,” she said. “All in good time.”

“You might have to rush if you want the world before it’s ravaged by nuclear war,” Max pointed out. 

“How ironic would it be if I was the one who prevented that from happening? How many nuclear powers do you think I’d have to overthrow to keep the peace?”

“I think starting with the USA would probably do the trick,” Jonah said. “Then there’d be a short window of time when the world tries to figure out what the fuck you’re going to do next.”

“It probably wouldn’t be that hard, given what a joke the current administration is,” Max said thoughtfully. “Bribe a few people, kidnap a few people, execute a few people…”

“Mmm,” Kinga said, shivering. “Stop, it sounds like too much fun.”

“I’m torn between not wanting a supervillain in charge of a nuclear arsenal and knowing that you’d be an improvement on who’s running the country now,” Jonah said. “You’re actually legitimately not the worst person for the job.”

“I may be evil and nihilistic but I’d rather save the planet than sign its death warrant,” she said. 

“I think you’re not as evil as you say you are,” Jonah said, and she arched a brow at him.

“You’re just saying that because you’re sleeping with me.”

“No… but it’s possible I’m saying it because I love you.”

“You--” Kinga blinked. “You love me? Really?”

“Yeah. I love you both.” Max lit up like a bulb, but Kinga looked taken aback. “What did you think I meant by strong feelings? Jeez.”

“I don’t know-- not _that_ ,” she said.

“I love you too,” Max said, leaning against Jonah for a moment, “but she takes forever to say it back.”

“Shut up,” Kinga said.

“Two months, Kinga. I told you how I felt and you took two months to say it back to me.”

“Actions speak louder than words. And much faster,” she said. 

“It doesn’t work like that when you’ve already slept with him,” Max said dryly, and Jonah lifted his hands placatingly.

“I mean, if you don’t feel it don’t say it. But you’ve already said you trust me with your life and that’s a pretty big deal on its own.” She frowned and crossed her arms and didn’t say anything.

“Give her time,” Max said. “You’re too loveable for her to not get there eventually.”

“We’ll see if he gives me enough time before he decides to leave,” Kinga muttered, and Jonah gave Max a startled look.

“You didn’t tell her?”

“You asked me not to,” Max said.

“Tell me what?”

“I’m staying until we finish the next season, and then I’ll decide what to do from there,” Jonah said. “You’ve got me for a couple more months at least.”

“What? When did you decide this?” Kinga leaned over Max to wrap a hand in Jonah’s collar and stare him down. “How long have you been sitting on this?”

“I don’t know, a couple of weeks?”

“Two weeks and four days,” Max said, “Or at least that’s when he said it to me.”

“You kept me in the dark,” she said, and gave Jonah a shake. “I fucking _hate_ being kept in the dark and the two of you…” She let go of Jonah’s collar only to grab Max and shake him too. “Especially you! How dare you.”

“Jonah asked me not to tell you,” Max said. 

“So? You always tell me things.”

“I promised him I wouldn’t, and I’m not going to lie to his face,” Max said indignantly. “You’re not-- you’re not the only one who has feelings that matter I have to take into account any more.” Kinga turned a narrow-eyed glare onto Jonah.

“You’re turning Max against me,” she growled, and Jonah’s eyes widened.

“Hey, wait a second. I’m not-- No? I’m not? Asking him to keep one secret for me isn’t undermining what you are to him!” Max only seemed to remember he had the vaporizer in his hands when he tried to touch Kinga, and he passed it to Jonah before wrapping his arms around her. 

“Nobody can turn me against you,” he said. She sneered, and he sighed. “Kinga. Seriously. You know you’re the most important person to me, and you always will be. But you’re not the _only_ important person to me any more.”

“I don’t like it when you keep secrets from me.”

“You keep secrets from me,” Max pointed out. “You _love_ keeping me in the dark. In fact, we wouldn’t be sitting here if the two of you hadn’t conspired behind my back. But I don’t freak out about it, because I trust you.”

“Can I add something?” Jonah asked tentatively. She turned the glare back on him at half intensity. “I’m one hundred percent not now and not ever trying to put a wedge between the two of you. I wasn’t withholding that information out of malice, I just wanted to give myself something to bargain with.”

“How much do you need to bargain with when you saved my life?” She visibly wilted, slumping against Max until she looked tiny. “I just… want you to stay,” she added quietly. “I like having you around. You’re… you’re becoming necessary. And I don’t know what to do about that.” 

“You’re manipulating me,” Jonah pointed out, and she frowned. “I just want to point out that I see what you’re doing but I’m still going along with it. And you don’t even have to do it, you’re already getting what you want for a while.” 

“I don’t think I like how tonight has gone,” she said. Jonah shifted over to make a little space between himself and Max and patted the couch invitingly.

“Will you like it better if we stop talking and start cuddling?”

“It’s worth a shot,” she said, and got herself wedged between them, her head on Max’s shoulder and her legs draped over Jonah’s lap. “You’re both very comfortable to lean on.”

“I’ve been told that before,” Jonah said. “Jeez, I thought the weed might do something, but you don’t mellow out, do you?”

“She doesn’t do mellow,” Max said. “She does intense.”

“I mellow out sometimes,” she sighed, settling into a cozy sprawl against them. “You’ve seen me mellow.”

“I’ve seen you post-coital,” Jonah said dryly. “That’s the closest to mellow I’ve seen you.”

“Yeah, well, you seem to be permanently mellow,” she shot back. “Although if that’s what you’ve been hiding up there it’s no wonder.”

“No, that’s just how I am. I try not to stress out too much about things.” 

“That’s a nice philosophy… I wonder how long it will survive your involvement with us,” Max said, and Jonah smirked.

“Hey, if it survived the actual torment, the relationship can’t be worse than that.”

“You’d be surprised,” Kinga said. 

“Oh, you’re not that bad,” Max said. 

“I’m worse as a girlfriend than I was before we were dating.”

“Categorically untrue, because now I can distract you in much more effective ways than I could before we became a couple.” She scoffed, and he leaned in and whispered something in her ear that made her eyes widen and her cheeks flush. 

“Oh. Yeah, that’s… that’s effective.” Jonah gave Max a curious look and got a cat-in-the-cream smile in return. “Actually, how do you think that would work with three…?”

“He’s not into it,” Max said, and Jonah’s curious look intensified. “Well, not from my side of the equation.”

“He wouldn’t have to go on that side of the equation.”

“Will someone please tell me what we’re talking about?” Jonah asked. “Because I’m not sure if I should be worried or turned on and I’d appreciate the clarity.”

“You should show him your collection,” Max said, and Kinga hummed thoughtfully, studying Jonah like a problem to be solved.

“With hands like those, a paddle seems superfluous,” she said, and Jonah snorted.

“Is it just a collection of things to hit Max with?”

“Well, I mean, there are other things in the collection…”

“Essentially,” Max said. “Although she has a point about your hands.”

“I thought you like it when I touch you nicely.”

“That’s not mutually exclusive to liking you touching me less nicely.”

“Who said you’d be touching Max less nicely?” Kinga said, poking Jonah in the chest. “Hello, I’m right here…”

“Yes, you are,” he said, catching her wrist and holding her firmly. “Why, you want me to hit you with things?”

“It could be interesting,” she said. “I’ve never been on the receiving end. I’m open to new experiences.” 

“Are you sober enough to make this decision?”

“I’m not incapacitated…”

“That’s not the question I asked.”

“I’m a little buzzed but capable of consenting,” she said.

“Max? What do you think?”

“I trust her judgment on this. And honestly… this I gotta see.” Kinga got to her feet and bounced a little, eyes bright with anticipation.

“This is a _much_ better use of the rest of the night than talking,” she said, holding out her hands to pull them both to their feet. “If you want any more information out of me you’re going to have to earn it.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Jonah said. He hadn’t been planning on an interrogation… but now he had a theory about what it would take to get her to crack, and he found himself eager to put it to the test.

**Author's Note:**

> The character blogs are still being updated!
> 
> http://squishysecondbanana.tumblr.com  
> http://thirdgenerationsupervillain.tumblr.com  
> http://flyboygizmocrat.tumblr.com


End file.
